OVERNIGHT. Music.

Untimely Finale

Concert For Parliament Off-key

It was billed as the "Concert for the 21st Century," a public celebration for the conclusion of the Parliament of the World's Religions. The problem was, there was no public.

Since neither the time nor the lineup for the Saturday afternoon Grant Park concert was ever made clear, pianist Steve Halpern walked onto the stage of the Petrillo Music Shell to an audience of a few dozen people. They were kept a block away from the stage with rows of empty seats that were reserved for parliament participants who never even knew there was a concert going on.

"Music is about balance, peace and inner harmony," declared Halpern as he played some New Age-meets-minimalist piano licks, asking the scant audience to join him in a chant of long vowels, which he described as representing the eternal sound of creation. "Take a deep breath and let the music carry you," he continued, as he began to create a raga-based improvisation and sang a Hindu mantra in a wispy, out-of-tune voice.

A long, drawn-out series of over-played arpeggios then developed into "Greensleeves," during which a blond female dancer in fluorescent bell-bottoms appeared and performed a creation dance while twirling a tie-dyed veil. "I invite you all to close your eyes and listen to the spaces between the tones," Halpern intoned, as he added some ambient synthesized strings to the proceedings, which by now had worn as thin as the crowd.

Arlo Guthrie, who had participated in several seminars of the parliament with his Brooklyn guru Ma Jaya Bhagavati, livened things up a bit when he came out and began an East-meets-West hootenanny with a sitar player, noting that "it makes for better music when everyone does their own thing, just like at the parliament."

Guthrie then performed an entertaining acoustic set by himself, the highlight of which was a twangy, folk ballad rendition of Elvis Presley's "I Can't Help Falling in Love" and a moving version of "Wake Up," made relevant to the AIDS crisis.

By the time the superb Jamaican reggae band Wan Africa hit the stage, the sparse crowd decided to dance in the aisles to the contagious Caribbean rhythms and their Rastafarian-inspired lyrics that spoke of the oneness of all beings and the need for global peace.

Some three hours after the Wan Africa set had concluded, and a half-hour beyond the time that the closing plenary of the parliament with the Dalai Lama was to have begun, those empty seats were finally filled with religious leaders and dignitaries, who seemed a bit puzzled when Kenny Loggins came out to serenade them with three New Age-meets-Gospel music folk ballads that were nicely done, but painfully out of place.

Apparently this became obvious rather quickly, as Loggins concluded his brief set after cutting his third number short, after which the Drepung Loseling Monks came out and intoned Buddhist scriptures to begin the evening's ceremony.